LibertyCon 38: Full Schedule

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3:00pm EDT

Space Update

Friday June 26, 2026 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT

Les Johnson moderates this update on what has happened in the past year in Space, and what might happen in the coming years.

Moderators

Les Johnson

Author, STEM, Past SGoH

Les Johnson is a physicist, author, CEO of Infinite Frontiers Consulting, and former Chief Technologist at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. While at NASA, Les was developing the next generation of space technologies, from advanced space propulsion and power to human... Read More →

Friday June 26, 2026 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
CC - Meeting Room 6 (Science Track) Chattanooga Convention Center 1 Carter St, Chattanooga, TN 37403

STEM, Panel

8:00pm EDT

Orbital Denial

Friday June 26, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm EDT

CC - Meeting Room 3 (Workshop Track)

From Peter Hamilton to Neil Stephenson, the weaponized Kessler effect is a major plot device in SF. Is it a real problem at this time? Could a 1750 mile swath of orbital altitude be blocked off deliberately, and what is affected?

Moderators

Les Johnson

Author, STEM, Past SGoH

Guests

Ken Roy

STEM

Kenneth Roy is a retired, professional engineer who is currently living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. As a long-time hobby he has been working with the idea of terraforming. He invented the “Shell Worlds” concept as a way to terraform planets well outside a star’s Goldilocks’ zone... Read More →

Stewart Cobb

STEM

Stewart Cobb designs satellite navigation systems for a living and reads SF&F for inspiration. He earned a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and holds more than a dozen patents. He's been an Air Force officer and a flight controller for the Space Shuttle, but hasn't yet reached orbit... Read More →

Charles Prael

STEM

Charles Prael is a long-time fan and west coast SMOF of dubious repute, with a resume that looks like a scarf by its length. At the moment I'm launching a hedge fund that will fund several different space/satellite projects, and may wind up paying for a lunar mining base - among other... Read More →

Mary Hare

Author

I’m a wife, mother, and grandmother, who had a four-year stint in the USAF in the Manned SpaceFlight Support Group at the Johnson Space Center in the 80’s, where I met and married my husband, also in the USAF at the time. Since then, almost every job I’ve had has involved computers... Read More →

Michael Morton

Author

Michael Morton is a retired USAF space officer and now works for the Space Force as a civilian. He writes award-winning military sci-fi and fantasy and lives in Colorado Springs with his family. When he’s not writing, he enjoys camping and sampling the local adult beverages.

Friday June 26, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm EDT
CC - Meeting Room 3 (Workshop Track) Chattanooga Convention Center 1 Carter St, Chattanooga, TN 37403

STEM, Panel

9:00pm EDT

Surviving the Apocalypse - Preserving the Harvest and Foraging

Friday June 26, 2026 9:00pm - 10:00pm EDT

M - Plaza Ballroom B

Tammie Darden moderates "Surviving the Apocalypse -Preserving the Harvest and Foraging."

Moderators

Tammie Darden

STEM

Tammie Darden is an everyday scientist in charge of a small production lab. Much to her surprise her work and insight has been found useful to story development by author friends.
Academically she continues her studies independently with a special emphasis on food science (which... Read More →

Guests

Tim Bischoff

Author / Owner, Southern Wilds

Tim “Cajun” Bischoff, born in Kentucky and raised in Bourbon country on a dairy farm. Writing along with cooking, fishing and cruising in his restored 1973 Chevelle are some of his passions. Tim has had three short stories published, the newest as author Timothy Hardy in 3 Ravens... Read More →

Bethanne Kim

Author, Publisher

Bethanne Kim is a publisher with the new alternate history magazine “Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond” and a writer in the 1632verse. She also writes about emergency preparedness (including on TheSurvivalMom.com), zombies, being a Scout leader, the US Constitution, and whatever else... Read More →

William Joseph Roberts

Author, Publisher

William Joseph Roberts has been called a Renaissance man, and an insane squirrel wrangler by his peers. Since his enlistment ended, he has pursued careers as an industrial and architectural designer, design engineer, and is now an award-winning author, editor, and publisher with Three... Read More →

Laura Montgomery

Author

Laura Montgomery practices space law and writes science fiction. She writes space opera, lost colony worlds, and bourgeois legal science fiction. Her most recent novel, Planting Life, has been nominated for the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Award.

In her legal practice she specializes in regulatory space law, with an emphasis on the FAA’s commercial space transportation regulations and the Outer Space Treaties. She spent over two decades in the FAA’s Office of the Chief Counsel working on space regulatory issues, and ta... Read More →

Kevin Pulliam

STEM

Kevin Pulliam, an Aerospace engineer, farms 130 acres of woods and pasture in North Alabama producing Grass Finished Beef, Forest Raised Pork, and Pastured Poultry and markets his regenerative farmstead’s products direct to the consumer. Regenerative farming improves the land through... Read More →

Friday June 26, 2026 9:00pm - 10:00pm EDT
M - Plaza Ballroom B Chattanooga Marriott Downtown 2 Carter St, Chattanooga, TN 37402, USA

STEM, Panel

10:00pm EDT

War Comes to Sol: Space Fights In Our System

Friday June 26, 2026 10:00pm - 11:00pm EDT

CC - Meeting Room 5 (Main Event)

War Comes to Sol: Space Fights In Our System: Eventually, we Terrans will be fighting in the orbitals. Where is the high ground? Where are the strategic points of interest? Panelists postulate the tech levels of the scenario, then discuss the actual orbital mechanics, combat, and dominating the Sol system.

Moderators

Les Johnson

Author, STEM, Past SGoH

Guests

Devon Eriksen

Author

Devon Eriksen is a recent Chattanooga transplant, marksman, and life-long reader, with a particular fondness for classics from the golden age of science fiction. After growing up with images of the galaxy brought home by his JPL engineer father, he spent most of his career as a software... Read More →

John Ringo

Author, Past LGoH

John Ringo's science fiction is action-oriented and abounding in characters to root for. He is the creator of the New York Times best-selling military science fiction series The Posleen Wars, with over one million copies in print. Ringo is also the author of the far-future science... Read More →

Charles E. Gannon

Author, Past LGoH

Dr. Charles E. Gannon is best known for the Caine Riordan series of hard sf novels, which include multiple best-sellers, 4 finalists for the Nebula, 2 for the Dragon, and a Compton Crook winner. His epic fantasy series, The Vortex of Worlds, has also been an awards finalist and a... Read More →

Karl Gallagher

Author, STEM

Karl K. Gallagher is a systems engineer, currently performing data analysis for a major aerospace company. In the past he calculated trajectories for a commercial launch rocket start-up, operated satellites as a US Air Force officer, and selected orbits for government and commercial... Read More →

Gray Rinehart

Author, Performer, Past GoH

Graham W. "Gray" Rinehart Rinehart is a writer, an editor, a singer/songwriter, and a retired Air Force officer. He is the only person to have commanded a USAF satellite tracking station, written speeches for Presidential appointees, devised a poetic form, and had music on The Dr... Read More →

Friday June 26, 2026 10:00pm - 11:00pm EDT
CC - Meeting Room 5 (Main Event) Chattanooga Convention Center 1 Carter St, Chattanooga, TN 37403

STEM, Panel

3:00pm EDT

8:00pm EDT

9:00pm EDT

10:00pm EDT

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